The Real Darwin Fish--Tiktaalik roseae

This may have been covered before, but I had not seen it and seeing as it is an older article, I thought it may be worth reviewing again.
There have been many here who have ask for a transitional specimen when discussing evolution as opposed to creation.

Sure enough, in 2004, scientists found one of those transitional species: Tiktaalik roseae, a 375-million-year-old Devonian period specimen discovered
in the Canadian Arctic by paleontologist Neil Shubin and his colleagues. Tiktaalik, explains Shubin on the latest episode of the Inquiring Minds
podcast, is an "anatomical mix between fish and a land-living animal."

"It has a neck," says Shubin, a professor at the University of Chicago. "No fish has a neck. And you know what? When you look inside the fin, and
you take off those fin rays, you find an upper arm bone, a forearm, and a wrist." Tiktaalik, Shubin has observed, was a fish capable of doing a
push-up. It had both lungs and gills. In sum, it's quite the transitional form.

So, this is the series preview about where this info comes from. It looks like a pretty neat series. I have heard of this "fish" before but remember
very little. Thanks for bringing it to my attention.

O K, I'll go ahead and admit I'm not real good on this high tech stuff.
Took my first computer class in 1984, it took almost an hour and a half to find the on button on an Apple II. Since then most everything has gone down
hill.

Had any of them consulted a Bible, they would have found it ironic in the extreme to find themselves paraphrasing a certain Jewish high priest who, at
the conclusion of a highly irregular judicial proceeding, tore his robes and cried out, "You heard Him! We don't need any witnesses! He has just
convicted Himself!" (Matthew 26:65) But none of them could have predicted the embarrassment they would feel when, almost four years later, someone
would find tracks supposedly indicating that a fully-developed amphibian or reptile was walking on land--twenty million years earlier.

Creationists, including David Menton and Mark Looy of Answers in Genesis USA and Jonathan Sarfati of the former Answers in Genesis Australia (now
known as Creation Ministries International), urged caution about Tiktaalik roseae from the beginning. They warned their evolutionary counterparts not
to read too much into Tiktaalik, and cited the coelacanth (Latimeria chalumnae) and the class Panderichthys as having similar features. (Coelacanth,
of course, qualifies as a "living fossil.") Sarfati went further: he reminded his readers that all the features described for the new find, and other
such finds, were consistent with the deliberate design of different life forms using similar design principles and even modular subsystems. In
addition, the creationists reminded everyone of previous vaunted findings that had been found either to be false or not to suggest evolution at random
after all.

Last month came the find that suggested that Tiktaalik roseae was not a transitional form after all. In response, some commentators declared Tiktaalik
roseae to be a persistent primitive form. Others, on on-line forums everywhere (including one to which this Examiner subscribes), continue to this day
to defend Tiktaalik roseae's place in the fossil record.

In fact, as Luskin points out, in 2009 four other fossil findings received the same sort of unwarranted attention as did Tiktaalik. The most famous of
these was Ida, the lemur-like creature touted briefly as a transitional form between simians and humans and abandoned soon afterward. This Examiner
predicts that Tiktaalik roseae will likewise have an inevitable successor, and that successor, too, will be dethroned in the same manner. In other
words, this, too, shall pass. And pass, and pass.

I guess I inadvertently sided with some of the creationists when I noted this sounded like a mudskipper... a "living fossil".

...
At first glance, Tiktaalik seemed to delineate a key evolutionary transition, thereby providing a strictly naturalistic explanation for the emergence
of life on land. But recent discoveries of other “fish-amphibian intermediates” in Latvia raise questions about the evolutionary
interpretation.

Paleontologists have analyzed the fairly complete remains of a creature called Ventastega.2 This animal lived about 365 million years ago and is
thought to occupy a halfway point between Tiktaalik and amphibians. However, its skeletal features indicate that it’s out of sequence. Older
fishapods actually exhibit more advanced features than those of Ventastega.

This same problem has recently been noted for another fishapod, Panderichthys.3 This creature existed about 385 million years ago and is considered to
be much closer to a lobe-finned fish than an amphibian. Yet, it has digits at the end of its fins, whereas Tiktaalik, considered to be more advanced,
doesn’t. Again, the fossils are out of sequence.

Another difficulty is the speed with which the transition from fish to amphibian appears to occur. According to the fossil record, the putative
transition begins about 385 million years ago and finishes about 365 million years ago. Intuitively, this timescale seems too rapid considering the
extent of the anatomical and physiological changes needed to transform an aquatic creature to one that lives on land.

Yet another concern for the evolutionary account is that the fishapods co-occur in the fossil record. Instead of appearing in a sequential fashion,
the creatures evidently coexisted and overlapped. In other words, the pattern observed in the fossil record doesn’t describe a linear evolutionary
change over time. The challenge for evolutionary biologists lies in letting the fossil record dictate the pattern rather than imposing a pattern on
the data.

How does the existence of fishapods fit a creation interpretation of life’s history? For one, these animals were perfectly suited to live at the
water’s edge. Also, the mosaic of fish and tetrapod characteristics possessed by the fishapods signifies design. Human designers frequently design
objects and systems that blend properties and features of different systems.4 If humans create mosaics, why wouldn’t a Creator do the same?

These fascinating creatures, well-designed to exploit their environment, make sense from a creation perspective. Conversely, overlapping fishapods
that appear in the “wrong” order in the fossil record indicate Darwin’s long-sought “innumerable transitional forms” still don’t exist.

The authors summarize their discovery of Tiktaalik in the following manner: “Overall, the skeleton of Tiktaalik is that of a flat-bodied animal with
raised and dorsally placed eyes, a mobile neck, imbricate ribs, and a pectoral girdle and forefin capable of complex movements and substrate
support” (Daeschler, et al., 2006, 440:762). Simply put, these researchers found some fossilized remains of a unique aquatic fish that we had not
yet discovered. Once you get beyond those facts, we find ourselves firmly embedded in the land of speculation. As Ahlberg and Clack admitted: “In
some respects, Tiktaalik and Panderichthys are straightforward fishes: they have small pelvic fins, retain fin rays in their paired appendages and
have well-developed gill arches, suggesting that both animals remained mostly aquatic” (440:748, emp. added). But what about this fin that Shubin
makes such a big deal about? Ahlberg and Clack remarked: “It turns out that the distal part of the skeleton is adapted for flexing gently
upwards—just as it would be if the fin were being used to prop the animal up” (440:748). Further: “Although these small distal bones bear some
resemblance to tetrapod digits in terms of their function and range of movement, they are still very much components of a fin (440:748, emp.
added).

I just love these atheist threads that continue to prove to us all that evolution is real. Then use bone head comments from so called Christian groups
denying evolution, that try make all Christians look stupid.
Classic type of atheist thread I've seen many many times before here on ATS.Then the radical zealots come on and quote verse after verse after verse
and the battle begins.

I consider myself a believer in a supreme creator, that made the universe and everything in it. Including evolution.

This is what I believe regarding the argument of Evolution Vs Creation.I don't believe that it is a them vs us mentality.
I believe the two go hand in hand and my argument is simple and crystal clear.

Evolution is real, we see it in the past and we see it in the present and it will determine our future.
It's all around us. From the smallest bird to the biggest mammals learning and adapting to new challenges, from a drawing on a piece of paper that
becomes a work of art, from a thought to an idea that becomes a super computer or a cure for cancer... all these things and many many more evolve over
time to become better than they were before.

But before any of these things can ever happen...they must have first been created.
Nothing can exist or evolve unless it is first created...from a single thought to a bird in a tree. This is also common sense because nothing can
evolve from nothing. It must first be created.
Now if the whole creation vs evolution argument is about which came first, then common sense prevails because like I said nothing can evolve from
nothing...it has to be created first.
How that happens is a whole different argument and I'm not posting here to pursue that debate.
So that's pretty much how look at it, and it's not a pro Christian view or an anti atheist view, it's just a view that makes sense to me..

Enjoyed reading your reply.
Maybe because it is so much in line with my own thoughts on the subject.
I think the most productive research into any of the evolution vs. creation debate could be done by working toward finding how and when chemistry
turned into biology.
I think this will be shown to be the moment of "creation".
I did not say "the creator".

Thanks. I always hope that one day a thread can constructively debate this subject without resorting to Christian Vs Atheist.
I didn't mean to insult your opening post but I can't stand the divisive nature of this argument every time I come across it.
This mystery, in my opinion is something we all must solve together.
What is the spark that drives life, and thought, and existence? What is the spark that gives everything the chance to evolve?
Is it an external force coming from the universe? Or is it something that is build into everything that we can't understand yet?

I love the debate, but loath the hate.
Hopefully some other people can constructively chime in on this without resorting to divide and conquer.

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